Friday, August 16, 2013

Weekend Links

In an earlier post, I noted the similarities between real-world Detroit and the fictional world of Starnesville in Ayn Rand's epic masterpiece, Atlas Shrugged. The folks at The Objective Standard blog published a post last week that delves deeper into that comparison. So if you liked my earlier post, you'll definitely like this one.

Obama loves to claim that the government can create jobs by investing in infrastructure projects; further, he loves to suggest that these are projects so large and so important, that the private sector and markets could never accomplish them, and that only the government can. Unfortunately, the average person is historically and economically illiterate in our country, so his arguments are frequently bought without question. But occasionally, someone will step up and try to correct such a situation. Larry Schweikart and Burton Folsom did just this recently with a piece in the WSJ pointing out the economic and historical ignorance of Obama and his view on infrastructure. Excellent article, well worth reading.

Interested in a scathing, acerbic lesson on how statist politicians seek and gain power in the modern era, particularly America? Look no further than this article from Tyler Durden at Zero Hedge. It may be a bit over the top in places but, overall, I think he's got the big picture right.